The Reuseversity

Teachers are innovators and combiners of things. A colleauge Elliot Tiffany has combined university with Reusing to create the reusiversity in which his students are getting great qualifications. First let's have a look at some of the outcomes for his students. Below that Elliot has kindly offered to share his ideas with others. We have included a sample of the challenge and a post-it note that may help teachers ans student make the most of the making.

A few projects 

Jared's Pallet bike rack

Here is a sample off the Certificate level Challenge

To make it a success we learnt a few things that might help.

Reuseversity by davein2it

Going Mobile

This Is my first mobile post. 


Typed/swyped mainly on a mobile. What I'd like to push myself to do is be more transformative in my actions. Lately I have become read alot (obsessed) about what features are to be available in the latest version of Google Android versus Apple's iOS.
This is an area that is changing so fast that new utility,applications and features are being added daily. 
There are people writing and reflecting on this even more often. We can read multiple updates and perspectives on this as easily as going to the web or even easy if we have them come to us using aggregation (reader) software.
My feeling is that we are a bit myopic in our adoption of Apple products fantastic though they are; without enough people testing other ways of doing things. My reading would tell me there is some realistic basis to this ie that the alternative are not without merit or functionality.


So There is some purpose to this Reading/Finding out but it is limited.

• preparing for purchase decisions 
• predicting future capability 
• finding useful applications 
• to be knowledgeable in the area of rapid change
• this is the fastest developing focus area for new tech

There are a few downsides

• lack of impact beyond the above
• this can become a habitual response 
• more passive than active 
• comes at opportunity cost for other learning 
• often relates to content acquisition rather creativity or adding value

So to break the cycle ...

I am limiting myself to set periods of reflection and to keeping a focus on 

the relationship of this learning to what it can bring for schools and learners as a result. When I read and follow I will put the GEMS into this blog or spaces for others. 

And on that note...

A great tool for android are the swype type keyboards have a look at this video to see how they work. Think this works on iOS but only jail broken phones/pods/pads.

This shows touchpal but swype is another great one.

The Google Message

The video below was Recorded over four minutes and sped up. It is an attempt by student to show how
they can utilise and collaborate using Google docs and a record of their thoughts of the impact of technology
on their learning

A First look at message from Media team on Vimeo.

The Form of the Message

I have been lucky enough to work with some students creating a message for the leaders of Independent Schools of New Zealand.
The theme of the conference this year is Understanding Generational Diversity. What I like about this is that the people have asked for a message from the students of these schools in a video form. This topic would not work without student voice being present.

I am working with a group of Southwell Students to develop a presentation of their message.

We started last week with an Eliminator (see Below) as to what they thought should be the message

The winner was

Modern Day technology allows access

to advanced learning

 

Other ideas are found in the picture:

• Boys and Girls work differently
• Adapt teaching to meet individuality
• Social Networking helps with learning
• Listen to us about how we would like to learn
• We want work to be slightly challenging

The Next step is to choose a form for the message and they have discussed
having a Digital Story or Movie.

When we next meet we will view the following three movies that show student voice and possible ways of
creating a visual message to support it.  I wonder what thinking these videos will create?

Michael Wesch

A video I produced about motivation

A look at the power of Google Docs

Learning to collaborate? – Games can help

Did anything come out of our collaboration using the Xbox game viva piñata yes it did!

A recent Visit From Ewan McIntosh Reminded me of some key factors

• A shared interest or goal makes for a good opportunity to share: blogs and information. It creates that purpose for communication
• Problems often require communication to solve: a puzzle is a good place to start a collaboration
• When you are describing something new and dynamic you can’t rely on others you have a unique experience to describe
• The imaginary world of games reflects the real world, presenting lots of opportunity to think and bring ideas together

Next Term a Syndicate at school has decided to put an Xbox in each class and use them for Creative Writing. I am excited by the  prospect of this an hope that I can be involved in some way. Will blog about this as it takes place.

• There is still a lot of reluctance to recognise the

  potential

  of Games in Learning
• Viva la revolution

Learning to collaborate? – Games can help from Media team on Vimeo.

Digital Citizenship – a big ask

We have students with connectivity and a number of choices to make.
We can protect them to a certain extent and of course we do by filtering and
education B U T in the end we can only do so much ….

I have spoken to students about this and asked them to collaborate on a document where they are asked

What we think as students about digital citizenship.....
What the school should do about students who download age restricted material is ...
How the School should try to protect students from things on the internet is ...
Should the school lock down computers so that we can't install anything ? Why ? Why Not?
What we should be able to do with our computers is...
What we shouldn’t be able to do with our computers is...
Questions we have around digital citizenship are.

Will post back what this group thinks soon

Reality Check -Inventions

After a long time of being busy helping setting up a new professional learning community I finally had a chance to work with students again. So what Am I trying to concentrate on.

• lots of opportunity for students to contribute, think, do and to create flow
• using visual material and offering some choice for students to select material
• reflection on what we have created and opportunities for students to outline where their learning is at
• looking at habits of mind as prompts for just in time learning opportunities “what habit of mind do you think could have helped you get past this point?” “taking responsible risks”
• letting student thinking and communication exist in its own right ie not all thinking needs to be reported on or commented on it can just “be”.
• integrating literacy work into just in time teaching moments with questions like “If this is going to be read by others what might we need to in terms of editing?”
• Having student share reading and retelling of others oral and written ideas

 

The investigation prompts and some outcomes are below

 

 

We are going to look at a couple of movies to find out.

 

Here are a few more links to inventions, and kid inventions; have a look.

• Kid Inventions file

• The Fun Theory file  

• What is happening to mobile phones? Resource  

• Heaps of inventions to look at. file 

• Kid inventors on Ellen Show Resource  

 

This is what 4km thought what  they did was to use typewith.me to describe everything they thought about where inventions come from and then we put them into this Wordle This is what we thought.

Where do Inventions come from? from Media team on Vimeo.

What we think about inventions and where they come from.

Motivation

Daniel Pink talks about motivational aspects in his book Drive

Motivation requires three aspects

• Real sense of purpose
• Sense of Autonomy
• Sense of potential Mastery in what they are attempting

It concerns me that sometimes we seem to focus on things we think they should know rather than what motivates them.
Dan’s talk on the subject has a lot to offer educators looking for improved student outcomes.

At the school where I work I heard some students who were working on a market day project the other day say to a teacher "I have never worked so hard before". The way the student said it was with immense pride. The project has obviously struck a chord and motivated students to learn and achieve.

Letting kids learn

“The longer you wait for the future, the shorter it will be”

ThinkExist.com Quotations. “Loesje quotes”. ThinkExist.com Quotations Online 1 Nov. 2009. 28 Dec. 2009 <http://einstein/quotes/loesje/>

I had the opportunity to work with some students who were taking part in end of year examinations. Those who finished early (and in this case most did) were given the opportunity to do something quietly. I watched as they involved themselves in a number independent activities. I took some photos on my mobile which are here in the slideshow. I reminded me of books we used to have like 100 things to make and do. I feel that this sort of activity, scaffolded and enhanced, has the ability to increase the potential of our student’s

literacy/numeracy/operacy .

Have a look at the slideshow (just eight pictures) and I will explain what I mean.

The only instruction given was that the activity had to be silent while others were working on their exams. We have looked at and developed a framework for learning at Southwell where I teach. I highlighted the values and key competencies personal learning time similar to this might support. This is about “learning to learn” and putting the learner at the center of the learning. Accepting where our students are at and providing them with the tools for self improvement but how ….

Quality Assurance
Such a strategy as this independent learning time is now possible to develop and support through the use of ICT tools. I believe the key characteristics of this might be. This is the big disclaimer

• Classroom Climate - Supportive classroom communities where learning modeled shared celebrated etc.
• Reflection/expression/evidence/collaboration portals ie social networks, eportfolios (for lack of better word), gallery spaces, video repositories etc
• Clear goal setting and articulation for learning perhaps SMART Students are asked to check off whether the goal is specific, measurable, action-oriented, reasonable and timely. This could be as simple as What is the purpose of this learning? What will represent success for me? What have I/we done so far? What do I/we plan to do next? with this information in a web environment peers and others can be used to motivate guide learners through this.
• Formative community assessment – embedded teacher,peer and whole class feedback/feedforward
• Time availability for learning to take place – this could be small pockets of time after say maths in an primary/elementary environment as we know that the brain need less intensive work in order for the neural pathways to become entrenched see syn-aps. It could also be represented in a more flexible programme where teachers facilitate learning with significant online support and individual access to personal learning.
• Exemplars, evidence – Examples of tall poppies – growing poppies and aspiring poppies give students a clear direction.
• 1 to 1 Access - to the connectivity, networks, creation tools and appropriate physical spaces and resources.

The place of personal learning can find its feet and show its evidence. I will finish with a building created in google sketch up by a year 7 students and a link to an online novel written by my son Jack (16) both examples of personal learning and endeavour.

Reality Check - Digital Story

We had a look at digital stories and how to make them with students at Southwell School. No matter what, it is important to hand over the learning to the students. Well ... here are some results. No success criteria in this first attempt was laid out but we talked about copyright, tone, static images etc. The students were self motivated by the chance to work in the digital environment and to apply learning to this media genre and format.

There is some strong story telling and visual language with the voice coming through in the Siberia story strongly. We would love some feedback and a quick comment would be appreciated by the students.

Reality Check 3

Working with Year Eight students on Digital storytelling aspects the following is the sketch of what and how we will work.

Most important part I think In the Session

1. work out what we know
2. have clear learning intentions
3. interact with each other
4. try to allow cognitive rehearsal for thinking
5. create new personal knowledge

 

From an earlier collaboration with another teacher

the following are the learning intentions

What is a digital story ? Look at three of these on these sites.

http://lc.celebrateoklahoma.us/

http://seein2it.wikispaces.com/Digital+Storytelling

 

Activity

Give 1 get 1. Move around the room give someone an idea about

What a digital story is ? and

• Story like
• Emotional
• One person speaking
• Transition of pictures
• Similar to a movie
• Pictures of what it is about
• About a personal view of someone
• Past tense
• Music or Song
• Pictures are still
• Pictures and voice describing

What it Isn’t

• A movie
• Made up
• Moving pictures
• Voices out of pictures
• Just all facts

 

Look at a factual survival story

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571#The_crash_and_rescue

 

Fact to fake narration

The students came up with these ideas

• Good hook
• Tense : generally Past/flashback. Present .Future
• 1st person 3 rd Person
• Ending in a question (keep people wondering)
• Balancing fact and experience/emotions
• Diary form
• Suspense
• Point of view

Read the article highlight important facts perhaps collect facts as a group. the article is too big and needs to be reduced if one session is used for whole activity.

Write this as a narration

Reflect at end what was good learning what wasn’t any comment you would like to make.

Game playing changing learning

We had 100 students in the last week of term working face to face in teams with people they had never met until the day of collaboration.
They were playing a game called Viva piñata as part of a Microsoft innovative Schools Project. Below  is a wordle of what they added for plus into  a PMI (plus minus interesting) of the effect the project has had on learning. The other “etherpads” are available here. The oral communication, group work and interdependence were what impressed me most with the learning that took place. The project has exceeded our expectations in terms of engagement and the development of key competencies.

 

I was also hoping that the online publishing and purpose for writing would lead to self editing

and the audience of peers encourage a high standard of written work. I still believe this to be achievable.  Many

blog posts showed articulate well thought out ideas and adherence to language and genre conventions.

Some postings had a rushed compliance feeling. Perhaps some writers were content with their visual and oral collaborations and were reticent to put effort into constructing the web presence of blog posting.

Have a look here for the students’ writing or in the iframe below for a sample.

Tomorrow is a big day

Extracts from what I want to say about the need for open access fibre networks to connect learners, learning organisations the world over.

I was unable to attend the first planning meeting of the group who have organised this event but have since understood the brief given for this part of the day’s programme to be look at Wow technology .

I was somewhat uncomfortable about this at first because afterall we were to address school principals. People who have had technology pitched to them over along period of time. Often we have shown you the big picture, the future, nirvana, the promised land of technology. And the education landscape is littered with failed promises, the unused and the past its use by date. We all know there are some realities around education that have not always worked in well with life on bleeding edge of technology. 

So before we consider wow factor I think it is important to look to look at the future through rose tinted glasses, through binoculars and under the microscope. We will not be able to do this in the timeframe of one day or meeting but what we may be able to consider is relationship of network connectivity to what we are trying to achieve as learning organisations. This will add to our ability to move towards a preferred future rather than the default one.

Connectivity is at the heart of this meeting and we will briefly outline the different types of network connection people are using to be part of the internet.

In terms of wow technology we have chosen a video conference and matched its participants to further discussion the potential of learning over networks.

This we hope will give a working example of the capacity of fibre optic bandwidth unachievable without such a connection.

We will look at what one New Zealand Council believes about the need for open access fibre networks.

What is happening with infrastructure

A student starting school today if attending till year 13 will leave in 2022.

From Ian Jukes

 

In Broad Sweeping Generalisations

We are increasing the number of devices because of

• Weight
• Cost
• Battery life
• Reliability
• Connectivity
• Functionality
• Value of the network to which they connect

The implications are

• We need either greater simplicity/reliability of equipment or greater technical support
• Increased device density requires better internal networks especially wireless
• Learners create more as well as consume
• School/community partnerships and
• anytime anywhere anyhow learning grows
• Much of this relates our new curriculum whose vision is “for young people who are confident, connected, actively involved lifelong learners.”
• And this relates perfectly to networks and connections.

I hope it goes well tomorrow.

Are We connected ?

Well is being connected becoming increasingly important and contributing to learning. Here in New Zealand the vision of the new curriculum is

“for young people who are confident, connected, actively involved lifelong learners.”

What we get from connectivity is an opportunity to talk with others, participate and be heard in ways that weren’t possible. I was reading the newspaper the other day a story about a woman whose partner is working overseas. They have a Skype conversation every morning and night. They do not feel separated.

When learners connect something happens too.

We have a meeting this Thursday of local school Principals talking about the possibility of connecting up to a local fibre service. I hope this will bring about more understanding of connectivity. I would like to have some reflections from around the world about when they feel/have felt connected and whether this matters. Click on either of the pictures to add your thoughts to when and why we are connected. If you don’t feel like writing just a name and where you are from will be fine.

Look out for Nerd Girl

Look out for Nerd Girl aka Kristine Kopelke.

I am going to see if we can get Nerd Girl to come to New Zealand. When I attend workshops presentations I see two main possibilities for them to be highly successful in changing my thinking practice or beliefs.

The first possible type of Professional Learning Success...

This is achieved by facilitating dialogues within a group where people share ideas reflect on big questions or are somehow active and learning by doing. There was great dialogue on the last day of MISC09 where participants rotated around the room with one member staying one going clockwise and one anti-clockwise. The questions presented were along the lines of

1. What insight have you got from the first two days that resonates with you?
2. What actions might you take on your return?

Why this professional learning works is likely because it addresses William Glasser survival understanding.

People feel empowered that they belong etc.

This is the type of professional learning that should be provided 80 % of the time. I hope facilitators understand this as a key understanding for working with learners.

The second possible type of Professional Learning success...

Is where the facilitator delivers their view point experiences and ideas in a more (sage on the stage style). For this to work I feel the presenter needs to use a unique lens (perspective) or reflection method to create something meaningful new and insightful for the audience.This second way is far more hit and miss: sometimes the presenter is delivering on a concept we don't understand, already understand or does so in a way that doesn't demonstrate originality or added value. Originality is about slight differences and comes from looking at something in a different way across disciplines and in exploration. This type of delivery will often lead to large differences in satisfaction between one audience member and another.

I thought Kristine was very good because her perspective was fresh yet logical: to look at what students are presently doing on the web as an insight into what we might get them to do and for what purpose.

What students were doing that struck a chord

If we are going to improve learning for students personalise learning and achieve higher potentials we need to pay heed to these ideas as mechanisms to assist students in our school environments.

The full presentation can be found here

Kristine Bluetoothed the presentation to a number of attendees flash enabled phones.

The application below will run on most Flash enabled mobile phones and can also be navigated through online by using the enter, arrow and number keys on the keyboard.

Right click here and select Save target as to download the app for your Flash enabled mobile phone or device.

To view the app here online, click on it with your mouse and then use the enter, arrow and number keys on your keyboard to navigate through the application.

Links for Kristine

Something that begins with play

Contact: Kristine Kopelke -

Tel: 5459 4590
Learning Innovation Centre Sunshine Coast
URL: http://www.earlyphaseicts.com

http://www.flashclassroom.com

Increasing intelligence

I have always been interested the idea of developing the gifted and wondered why we aren't all inventing creating and displaying understanding at a high level. I was optimistic that we were becoming smarter and smarter as inhabitants of the blue planet. A visit to the Waikato Museum made me reflect on this. The Da Vinci exhibition here in Hamilton showed this man who lived over 500 years ago and did so much for us, so much thinking and doing in one lifetime. While this man was an exception it would be good to think that we could all be capable of more. In a conversation with Mark Treadwell I remember him saying "the world is running out of smart people." We certainly have some challenges ahead of us and will need to maximise our smart people. Is this just a case of genetics? Royce Helm the headmaster of my school talks of "Intelligence is like a balloon which can be increased". Can we provide the conditions for increasing intelligence and still keep the benchmarkers happy? I think the answer is yes. The assessment process for basic literacy numeracy skills needs to provide information naturally so that we can take care of the basics with out spending huge effort to work out what these are. I share Suzie's dislike for league tables found in the linked post. If we are to increase our intelligence balloons education has to step up to the plate and take responsible risks some of these of the top of my head are

any webspiration user who want to collaborate in this diagram can email me and I will add them as authors.

On a final note in my mind we are definitely going to need help foster creativity to help us. Here is a reflection from a team of teachers at school as to what may effect the fostering of creativity

Introducing the tablets

The video above shows Tim Bullock with a clear path to looking at the tablet with his students. The short reflections from students from another class helps us realise that the students have little real understanding of the potential of their devices and refer to uses they make of similar technology.

Jedd Bartlett in his blog
Points to a Jisc report that indicates there is more to ICT than natural use. “New report reveals the information needs of the researchers and learners of the future: The report by the CIBER research team at University College London claims that, although young people demonstrate an ease and familiarity with computers, they rely on the most basic search tools and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to asses the information that they find on the web…”

While addressing analytical skills I feel this reinforces my belief that outside of the teachable moment we need to still scaffold student learning with some clear learning design and intentions for the technology we are adapting more and more. The term "digital native" has been somewhat used as an abdication of reponsibilty for student learning. My feeling is we cannot merely hand over technology in the hope the students will work this out for themselves.

What can we do to improve this with students.(my initial thoughts)

• Ask students to explore capabilities in some depth and work with others on them
• Have students explore some technical communications on the web
• have students post some technical communications to the web
• Look at what others have achieved
• Use co-constructed rubrics
• Lay down explicit challenges
• Be prepared to build base knowledge outside of inquiry
• (authentic learning can take place here)
• Discussion and role based group work
• Always have a learning design

Please help add to or rephrase this list

Visual literacy Reality check

Visual literacy Reality check
I have interviewed Peter Walch an innovative teacher at Southwell School
about the impact of visual literacy on learning. Learners in Pete's class have told powerful stories with Visual Language driving the message. I asked Pete some questions about Visual Literacy and he came up with some interesting answers.

Video from 2007

Reality Check 1

Reality Check 1

I have always backed visual images and sound as great learning tools. There is more information in these than text. I am interested in what information and collaboration will develop with a group using text about Darfur compared with one using a Youtube video clip.





What Students produced from the thinking tool

• Think
• Puzzle
• Explore